I have ticked the option in preferences to save pictures for 24 hours and save movies for 7 days, but what if I want to keep these files forever? Do I just untick the boxes, or will this cause the program to not save the files at all?

If the boxes are not ticked, the images are not saved. For example, the still shots are deleted as soon as they are used unless the box is ticked, in which case they are saved for 24 hours. If the movie box is unchecked, the hourly movies are deleted at midnight. If you want to keep them forever, copy them to a folder outside of WeatherCat's control.

With the movies, I would like to create an archive of daily movies, but I need to find a way of combining all the hourly videos the software creates into a daily video. I can do this manually, but that's no good when I'm away from the computer. This is what I had on the old site - http://www.brackenhouse.net/weather/wxcam-latest.php. Takes a while to load, and they are outdated.

What you want to do has been added by Stu as a future feature request. In the meantime, check out Evocam and see if it will do what you are asking. It is outside WC so you loose the WC overlays, which is a shame, but I am under the impression it will create the daily time lapse interval. I haven't done it myself, but I believe Steve has.

I like your photos from Bracken House, as Blick does, too. I never understand why someone will take a template to go online with weather and neighborhoods. It is - after a while of trying - not too hard to spin someones special own website.

I agree Reinhard. I went with the template because I haven't used HTML5 or CSS3 so I need to learn them before I can design my own template. My main aim is to get the site back to as near to what it was before and displaying weather data correctly. Once I've done this, I can spend my time designing my own template.

It probably won't ever happen and I'll stay with the template based site forever.

With the movies, I would like to create an archive of daily movies, but I need to find a way of combining all the hourly videos the software creates into a daily video. I can do this manually, but that's no good when I'm away from the computer. This is what I had on the old site - http://www.brackenhouse.net/weather/wxcam-latest.php. Takes a while to load, and they are outdated.

I tired to come up with a way a while back but couldn't find a decent command line tool to splice the hour videos. If you upload to Weather Underground, Weather Underground does this for you and I link to their daily movie on my website:

"Templates" are many powers of magnitude harder than "web pages". What I've seen of "templates" is a creation for many others to use. They usually facilitate unknown quantities of data and multiple data formats and languages. That's why most of them use hundreds of PHP scripts and dozens of supporting text files. None of that is needed for a self-designed, purpose-built, personal web site.

PHP can help in many areas, especially in building displays for databases, but that usually involves SQL. Some of us like the wide page display of several dozen columns of figures. Others, not so much! OTOH, many template authors have made parts of their creations available for use in our own sites.

Some of us like taking a "template" and leaving the design/look to that author. Others have different priorities (like "old" cars! )! Some people actually enjoy using Windows, although I don't have any reliable data on that theory.

All the above is just to say that's one of the things I really appreciate about this place! We can all enjoy the details in our own ways and still have so much in common that we can appreciate each other! It would be great to see more of that in this world, in my humble opinion.

The trouble with templates is that they are designed to work in different languages and with an assortment of programs. I decided to stay with the template route because I wanted something up and running quickly. When I have more time to spare, I will design my own template to meet my needs.

When I have more time to spare, I will design my own template to meet my needs.

Which is how and why all of these templates were created in the first place.

My career was in finance and this same process is how all financial prospectuses are written. You just see what everyone else said in their prospectus and you copy the bits you like to make it work for you.

Ken True, Wim and Edouard have all created very cool templates that work for them. Steve's website uses bits from several templates plus his own improvements. Reinhard's website is an example of a beautiful design that he created to work for him. It just takes time, patience and learning some new stuff (which is a challenge for us older codgers).

Personal weather station users in general and WeatherCatters in particular are a terrific bunch of people willing to share and help others.